


Lessons In Cooperation

by pidebird



Series: Nygmobblepot Week 2017 Fics [1]
Category: Batman - All Media Types, Gotham (TV)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Guns, M/M, Murder, Pre-Relationship, i really suck at writing action scenes
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-09-20
Updated: 2017-09-20
Packaged: 2018-12-31 22:15:26
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12142248
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pidebird/pseuds/pidebird
Summary: Oswald and Edward confront a club owner who has been refusing to pay the fees of running a club under their protection, and things momentarily take a turn for the worse.





	Lessons In Cooperation

**Author's Note:**

> Nygmobblepot Week 2017 - Day 1 - Murder Husbands  
> I was kind of stuck with this prompt for awhile, but I’m pretty happy with how this turned out, though it is kind of light on the nygmobblepot.

“I assume you already know why we’re here. Is that a correct assumption, Mr. Stix?” Oswald asked in a tone that falsely portrayed pleasantness, paired appropriately with a forced grin across his features. While he spoke, he leaned forwards over Mr. Stix’ desk, propping his cane against the edge before proceeding to firmly plant both of his hands atop its polished surface. As he waited for the other man to reply, he shifted on his feet slightly and began to purposefully drum his fingers against the desk, just hard enough that it could be heard.

The deliberate tapping noise, and that Oswald was even touching his desk in the first place, clearly annoyed Mr. Stix and the man glared down at his hands, his jaw firmly set and features harsh, in order to avoid looking the mayor in the eyes. Before the silence could grow too long between them, the club owner finally tore his eyes away from Oswald’s hands to instead move up to his face. His lips slowly pulled into a smile that wasn’t very convincingly masking his displeased mood as he came up with a reply. “I don’t know, why don’t you jog my memory?”

The man was dodging the question, though that wasn’t at all very surprising to Oswald. He looked over his shoulder and to where Edward was standing just a few feet behind him, and it was clear that the chief of staff was just as unimpressed. The two had arrived at the nightclub just a few minutes earlier with the intention of shaking down the owner for a fairly large sum of money that he owed Oswald after refusing to pay him now that he had raised the taxes. He’d tried to be cooperative, having previously given Mr. Stix a generous payment extension date, but after that was missed without any word from the owner Oswald had decided, with Edward’s input, that it was time to take a more assertive approach. 

Now, the two men were standing in the large, and very gaudily decorated, office of the club’s owner. The only other person they had brought with them was one of Gabe’s gunmen, and though he was trusted, he seemed fairly inexperienced. With Butch gone and proven a traitor by Edward, and with Gabe busy with other tasks, they had decided to take their chances with only one backup man and to hope that Mr. Stix would be cooperative. After a few more seconds of silence, and Edward giving him a knowing look, Oswald turned his focus back to the club owner.

“Well,” Oswald began to answer, his fingers halting any movement and his voice momentarily louder than it needed to be, making the club owner wince slightly, “As I’m sure you’re aware, I raised the tax for all of the clubs in business along this street a month ago, and it seems like some people haven’t been paying that price.” His tone continued to read as benevolent as he explained, though there was a definite edge behind each word. He had left the statement open for the other man to then fill in the missing details, but when Mr. Stix didn’t say anything after a few moments, Oswald continued in a more tense tone. “You are one of these people. Now, I thought I’d be considerate and give you some time, but I’m sorry to say, that time has run out.”

“Uh-huh… And, how much money is it you’re expecting me to give you?” Mr. Stix leaned forwards slightly as he spoke up, moving his arms up onto his desk so he could intertwine his fingers and rest his chin casually atop them. His tone portrayed a feigned interest in the situation, though his attitude continued to express that he wasn’t taking any of this as seriously as he should be, and it was beginning to try at Oswald’s nerves.

Oswald exhaled a sigh through his nose and his forced expression of happiness fell noticeably as he made eye contact with the club owner again, making it clear that he was beginning to grow tired of the act the other man was attempting to execute. After a moment, Oswald removed his hands from atop Mr. Stix’ desk completely and grabbed his cane before he took a few steps back, gesturing Edward forwards with his free hand as he replied, his tone continuing to remain considerably pleasant for the moment. “Of course. Ed, would you mind giving him the numbers?”

“Not at all.” Edward answered immediately, his own voice also carrying a reasonably benevolent tone as he walked forwards from where he had been patiently standing throughout the conversation. He easily slipped past Oswald and approached club owner, lifting the briefcase that they had brought with them up and onto the polished desk so that the meeting could continue. It only took Edward a second to input the four-digit combination required to unlock the briefcase and then pull it open. In the briefcase there was only a stack of papers resting atop the protective foam lining it’s inside, which Edward removed and placed down on the desk in front of himself so he could quickly review the information printed upon each page.

“Alrighty, Mr. Stix, these papers pretty clearly lay out each benefit of the protections and support that you receive from Mayor Cobblepot, as well as all of the expenses required in order to continue receiving those benefits. Now, if you cannot—or do not wish to—continue paying for these services, we can arrange for that, though there will be a small fee because you didn’t give us any notice before the month began.” Edward flipped a few pages as he spoke, his tone genuinely casual as he skimmed over the details and agreements on each page, before he paused and cast a glance upwards towards the club owner in order to make sure he was still listening. Mr. Stix looked both bored and possibly annoyed with the conversation, but he was staring right at him, so Edward decided to trust that he had his attention. “Additionally, even if you do discontinue the protection services, you will still be expected to continue paying the base tax of running your club on this street, which you’ve failed to pay since the last raise.”

As he finished speaking, Edward took one last moment to flip through the papers and double check that he had gone over everything necessary, before he turned them around and, with a smile, he used one hand to slide the stack across the smooth surface of the desk until they were directly in front of Mr. Stix. He retracted his hand before he took a long step back, to stand directly beside Oswald. The two men watched Mr. Stix hesitate for a moment, directing his stare up to them, before he looked down to begin reading the papers. As he unclasped his hands so that he could look through every page, it was apparent he wasn’t taking the time to read everything, but he was still skimming fairly thoroughly over all of the numbers, and hopefully getting most of the important parts.

While waiting for Mr. Stix to finish reading over everything, Oswald shifted on his feet and turned his head slightly so he could look up at Edward. His chief of staff was currently fiddling with the position of his glasses upon the bridge of his nose with his left hand, while his right hand remained loose at his side. His eyes traveled over the room, seemingly studying everything within it. After another few seconds, Edward eventually caught Oswald staring at him, and he turned his attention onto the mayor, a small grin gracing his features as he let his hand fall down to mirror the other at his side. Oswald smiled back politely, and he considered whispering something to the other, before their attention was pulled back to the task at hand as Mr. Stix made an unhappy sound.

“Hmph. So, you think you can just waltz in here, in your pressed suit with some papers, and I’ll hand over everything you ask for?” Mr. Stix asked in an annoyed tone of voice as he audibly slapped his hand down over the papers, before he glared at Oswald and Edward. The club owner’s gaze remained steadily on the two of them as he fluidly moved his hand forwards, pushing the papers away from himself with enough force that they flew off of his desk and scattered all over the floor at their feet. “The only way you’re getting any of my money is if you take it from my cold dead hands, Penguin.”

Oswald’s grin fell from his face almost immediately as the club owner spoke, his expression morphing into one of obvious frustration. He inhaled deeply, the action causing his chest to puff up slightly as he shifted on his feet and gripped the head of his cane more tightly. The show of clear disrespect succeeded at digging under his skin and the only thing that kept him from completely losing his cool was the presence of Edward standing right beside him, mildly calming Oswald just by being near him. He shifted his jaw as he held his tongue from saying any of the hostile words that had immediately come to mind, and instead he turned to look at Edward again, taking in the similarly annoyed expression on his face. They briefly held eye contact with one another until Oswald turned back to Mr. Stix with his brows tightly pulled together and a smirk replacing his frown. “Oh, believe me, Mr. Stix, that can definitely be arranged.”

“Oh, it can, can it? And how do you plan on accomplishing that? I don’t feel like I’m gonna keel over anytime soon, if I’m being completely honest with you.” Mr. Stix’ response was delivered in a tone of voice that very clearly came across as arrogant and sarcastic. As he spoke, he leaned back in his chair more comfortably and he smirked right back at Oswald, doing nothing to help improve his quickly souring mood.

“Very well. You had your chance to be cooperative.” As Oswald spoke he gently tilted his head to one side and shifted slightly in place again, before he raised his free hand up and snapped his fingers sharply. Almost immediately, the gunman they had brought with them brought his gun up to aim it directly at the club owner in a threatening manner. Mr. Stix, however, only grinned back at them for a long moment of silence, before he broke out into laughter, causing Oswald’s smirk to fall from his face.

“You and glasses think that bringing one man in to wave a gun around is gonna scare me? You guys couldn’t take me down if I was blindfolded. When you took over for Fish, I knew it wouldn’t work out, but I thought I might as well give you a chance. At least play along with things until you got replaced. Now it seems like I have to do the honors.” Mr. Stix’ grin widened as he spoke, his mirth still carried through his tone with each syllable of every word. As he finished speaking, his hand slid across his desk until he briefly pressed the intercom button on his desk.

Before Oswald could even think to say anything else, the door behind them burst open, causing everyone’s attention to immediately move towards it. As the door banged back against the inside wall of the room, three of the club owner’s bouncers entered, each armed with guns. The first man who entered the office began to aim his gun and put his focus entirely on Oswald’s gunman, but their man’s trigger finger was luckily quicker, and the bouncer yelled as he fell back against the wall, where clumsily slumped to the floor, leaving a trail of blood running down the wall behind him. The bouncer coughed pitifully where he sat on the floor and he groaned as he fumbled with his gun in a sad attempt to aim it again. Oswald’s gunman took notice and quickly put another bullet right through the critically injured bouncer’s skull, though he was too distracted to even aim towards the other two bouncers who were now pointing their guns towards them.

“Oswald—“ Edward shouted his name suddenly and very loudly, the first one to speak since the situation had taken an unfortunate turn, and it successfully caught Oswald’s attention, but before Oswald could physically react, Edward’s hands were on him and he was tackled to the ground. Oswald had instinctively shut his eyes as he fell to the floor, and when he opened them he was looking right up into Edward’s own. Not any more than a second later, more gunfire broke out above them and their attention shifted away from one another and instead towards their gunman, who hadn’t taken cover.

The man stumbled aimlessly for a moment and it was immediately clear to both Edward and Oswald that he had been hit as he fell to the ground with a loud thud. From where they were on the floor, with Edward practically lying on top of Oswald and only holding himself up with his arms planted on either side of Oswald’s head, they were blocked from direct view of the bouncers by a large, ugly, leather couch. Additionally, it seemed as though the club owner was hiding under his own desk to avoid any stray bullets, so they had at least a few seconds to plan out their next move.

“Are you okay?” Edward quickly asked in a hushed tone as he looked back down at Oswald again, his glasses slightly askew from all of the sudden movement. As he spoke, Edward shifted on top of Oswald, and after a moment he had managed to successfully climb off of him. He positioned himself so that he was crouched low against the couch, and while he was carefully listening for any signs of the bouncers moving towards them, he kept his eyes on Oswald, who had flipped over onto his stomach so that he could push himself up into a sitting position. 

“I’m fine, Ed. Thank you.” Oswald replied in a rushed, equally quiet whisper, his tone also made unsteady as he tried to calm himself down. He couldn’t say that he had been expecting things to turn out this way, though at this point in his careers, both as the king of Gotham’s criminal underworld and as the city’s mayor, he supposed that a day gone by without having his life threatened could be considered boring. Regardless, he was just grateful that Edward was with him through most of it, seeing as he’d saved his life multiple times now. When he looked back at Edward, he nodded his head in a silent reply to Oswald as he moved his hand up to push his glasses all the way back up onto his nose, before dropping it back down to his thigh so he could carefully pull out his pistol.

Edward began to inch closer to the side of the couch with his gun held at the ready, and Oswald crept slowly towards the other end, after taking out his own gun. Neither had to verbally address their plan as they executed it; if they left cover at the same time they would have a better chance of catching the bouncers off guard, and hopefully buying themselves enough time to take them down. Once they were both in position and ready to go, Oswald was the one to give the signalling nod to Edward, and the two men sprung up from the floor, immediately shooting blindly in the general area that they assumed the bouncers would be. Over the noise of gunfire, there was unintelligible shouting as the bouncers tried to aim at them while simultaneously trying to avoid being shot.

Oswald’s eyes quickly focused on the guard closest to him, standing just a few feet away from the couch, and he jerked his gun towards him as he continued to fire. The man had been aiming for the couch, waiting for them to emerge from cover, but it was clear he hadn’t been ready and he was far too slow as he tried in vain to correct his aim. One bullet grazed the man’s shoulder, causing him to lose his grip on his gun, sending it clattering to the ground, and stumble back a step before two more bullets pierced his upper chest. Oswald’s aim was just a few inches from the man’s heart, but he had definitely punctured a lung, and it was more than enough damage to send the bouncer tumbling onto the floor in a slowly growing puddle of his own blood.

Once it was clear that the man wasn’t going to be getting up again, Oswald turned his head just in time to watch as the second bouncer similarly dropped to the ground after being shot several times in the chest, without even having much of a chance to react in any way other than screaming in surprise and pain. When Oswald then turned his attention to Edward, the other man was already looking at him, a confident grin on his face. Oswald returned the smile immediately and the two couldn’t help laughing with each other for a moment, adrenaline and excitement rushing through them after having seamlessly disposed of both bouncers.

“Now, I think we were in the middle of something,” Edward turned around, his gun held up and pointing at the ceiling, as he began to speak in a tone loud enough for the club owner to hear from where he was still hiding under his desk, “Weren’t we, Mr. Stix? Why don’t you come out so we can get this little business meeting all wrapped up?” Oswald followed Edward’s lead and the two walked right over to the desk, stopping just in front of it as they waited for some sort of response. After a few long moments of silence, Oswald made his impatience for the situation clear by aggressively kicking the front of the desk in order to elicit a reaction.

“Alright, alright, I get it!” Mr. Stix’s muffled voice proclaimed, before he slowly began to crawl out from beneath his desk. As he stood up, he carefully raised his hands into the air signalling his willingness to cooperate, his expression no longer smug or confident and instead fearful. He stuttered slightly as he spoke up again, pleading, “I swear, I’ll pay you whatever you want, Mr. Cobblepot. This was just a mistake, y’know? ”

“Oh, you’re right about this being a mistake. Go on and take a seat, sir.” Oswald continued to grin maliciously as he ordered the club owner around, and his widened eyes closely followed the now meek man as he hesitantly obeyed. Mr. Stix seemed as though he wanted to say something in response, but he thought better of it and instead silently looked between the two of them as he waited for Oswald to continue. “I hope that your little stunt was worth it while it lasted, because I’m not so positive I’d like to continue doing business with you. I’m sure you can understand.”

As he finished speaking, he quickly raised his gun upwards from where he had been holding it down by his hip, and he aimed it right at Mr. Stix’ head. The club owner immediately shrieked and jumped in his seat as he tried to protect himself by raising his arms up to cover his face, just as Oswald pulled the trigger twice. Instead of gunshots, however, the only sound produced were two metallic clicks as he attempted to fire from the empty clip. Oswald cursed under his breath as he continued to pull the trigger a few more times, just to make sure that it was truly empty, and his grin turned into a tight frown before he finally just tossed the gun to the floor. As it clattered against the ground, Mr. Stix flinched and warily let his arms fall from his face.

“Alright, excuse me. Change of plans.” Oswald, looked around for a second, before his eyes landed on Edward and his grin returned to his face. Edward extended his hand towards him and offered his own pistol, but he looked momentarily confused as Oswald’s hand wrapped around his own, instead of just taking the gun. Oswald gently guided his hand, and the gun, forwards until it was aimed right at Mr. Stix, Edward caught on to what he was doing and he smiled as he turned his gaze away from Oswald and back onto the club owner instead. As Mr. Stix began to beg for his life, Oswald ignored him and talked right over his pleas for mercy, “It’s too bad things couldn’t work out between us, but I think this is for the best anyways. Goodbye, Mr. Stix.”

Oswald punctuated his statement by squeezing Edward’s hand in his own, and Edward took it as a sign to shoot, so he pulled the trigger, just once. Mr. Stix was cut-off mid sentence by the bullet as it penetrated his forehead and went right through his skull, causing the former club owner to suddenly fall back against his chair, his arms falling limply to his sides. In the silence that followed the loud gunshot, the two men stood completely still for another minute, with Oswald’s hand still firmly holding Edward’s, and they stared at Mr. Stix’ body until Edward eventually cleared his throat.

“Oh, excuse me, Ed.” Oswald quickly let go of Edward’s hand, attempting to keep his tone even, though there was a slight edge of embarrassment. He had forgotten that he was still holding the other man’s hand, and could feel his cheeks warm slightly as he took a step away from Edward, trying not to make the other man uncomfortable. As Edward turned to face him, he smiled reassuringly as he replied. 

“No worries, Oswald. It’s just unfortunate that Mr. Stix was so uncooperative, his club usually brought in a lot of money.” Edward casually put his gun away again as he spoke, gesturing with his free hand towards the corpse of the club owner when he was mentioned. Even despite the danger they had just been through, Edward was still thinking about the specific purpose of the meeting, and it made Oswald’s grin grow wider in endearment for his best friend.

“It couldn’t be helped. I’m sure that I can arrange for a new, and more loyal, owner for the club before the month ends.” Oswald confidently assured Edward, who seemed to be satisfied with the response as he nodded curtly. the mayor took a second to readjust his suit, finally having a moment to make sure that he didn’t look too disheveled, before he got an idea and he voiced his suggestion as he ran a hand through his hair. “Now, Ed, why don’t we go get something for lunch?”

“That sounds like a perfect idea, Oswald.” Edward smiled sincerely as he answered, and he also took a second to flatten his own clothing. Other than this meeting, they hadn’t had any other things planned for the day that couldn’t be taken care of later on, and Edward was very willing to grab something to eat with Oswald after all of the excitement they had recently experienced. He gestured enthusiastically towards the door, before he continued jovially. “There’s a very nice Italian place just a few blocks away, if you’re in the mood.”


End file.
